1.A. Field of the Invention
This invention is in the field of Short Message Services, and more specifically, the field of implementations devised to provide, for their users, supportive interpretations of short messages whose sparse formal substance may be inadequate to communicate to the recipient what the sender intended. This invention makes no claim for physical transmission, storage, or reproduction machinery or mechanisms used to handle a Short Message (SM; in the plural, SMs), presuming the existence and availability of such physical means as well-established in the prior art, whether such be a Morse telegraph or a Blackberry wireless text message and pager.
1.B. Description of the Related Art
The prior art, as described in the original application Ser. No. 11/231,575, “SMS+:Short Message Service Plus Context Support for Social Obligations”, filed on Sep. 21, 2005, described a new method for supporting short, less-than-formally complete text messages to communicate between a sender and one or more recipients. For the reasons and advantages listed in the prior application and below, inventor created the invention described therein. The prior art references, definitions, and description of the parent application are hereby specifically incorporated into this continuation-in-part.
Since the parent application was filed, further enhancements and improvements have been created by the inventor in response to problems and concerns that have been discovered during commercial implementations of the prior invention. A chief problem with the original application's invention for some SMS users, was that some text message often required repeated exchanges to clarify formally-indefinite words. Anyone involved with patent drafting knows that problems can arise with antecedents when context or grammatical reasoning is depended upon to provide a non-explicit linkage to the source noun. With text messages, where substitutions often are used (e.g. the letter “U” for the pronoun “You”; the letter combination “2C” for the infinitive “to see”), understanding a message's meaning may require one, two, or several layers of interpretation. That has slowed, and continues to handicap, the spreading usage of SMS text-messaging to the external development of shared common knowledge. (Contrary to appearances, new slang does not spontaneously generate simultaneously in each generation of teenagers, but requires transmission of either the definition, or the underlying shared experience, first.)
This limitation on the realization of a shared ‘network effect’ is a known problem within any computing or communication application; and its solution depends upon a meta-level response—some means for communicating the definition of any implicit or coding linkage must be used above and beyond the use of such a coding linkage in a message transmitted between a sender and a recipient.
A second problem was that the original application's invention encountered confusion and clashes arising out of the disparate expectations and practices of the SMS+ developers and users as to the language certainty and standard definitions for SMS text phrases.
A third problem lay in the disparity between the paucity of SMS text and the quickly-increasing richness of communications bandwidth.
The applicant soon realized that it would be wise to devise a more complex integration between human-user informalities and the external linkages providing context for the SMS+4D service which might lead to speedier and broader adoption and adaptation.
Short Message Services (SMS) are a way to send a message to a subscriber's wireless phone or other device. SMS messages have become quite popular recently. The messaging source typically is a cellphone or other hand-held device capable of supplying a user-input message. While previous generations of hardware limited the total bandwidth and number of messages due to memory costs, these are constantly dropping. However, the usual limitation on formally controlled input means still remains; most hand-held devices offer a limited-count keypad, the most common such appearing in a 3×4, digital-telephone keypad format.
At the same time, less-formally controlled input means are being added, with the most common pair being some form of on-device visual image capture means (the cellphone ‘camera’, implemented often with CCDs) or a short-range wireless linkage means (usually described by the wireless protocol and standard used, e.g. ‘Bluetooth’). These provide the potential for an information ‘sideband’ that can be used to help provide the context for a text message.
In addition now to the previous generation of character-only, text messages that are allowed by most Short Message Service providers, context-providing information (visual or radio) can be associated with a specific text message. Furthermore, the SMS provider can use the text message, the associated context-providing sideband information, or an existing pattern of either or both of the above, to infer and associate context correctly, such that a recipient asking for clarification may receive that automatically from the SMS provider rather than having to play ‘telephone tag’ with the original sender.
The real strength of synchronous communications is not that they are more perfect than asynchronous ones. In fact, generally the opposite is true; asynchronous communications are by custom and good sense far more formal than their synchronous counterparts. For the strength of synchronous communications is that they incorporate an immediate opportunity for identification of a miscommunication arising from indefiniteness or non-shared context. Recognition of the failure can be signaled with an overt error message (e. g. “What do you mean by ‘this’?”); or it can be communicated through the visual or aural sideband signals (e.g. a puzzled expression, pointing to each of the possible selections in series with raised eyebrows, or a baffled tone of voice). However, synchronous communications require that both parties must remain attentive to each other throughout the entire process.
The parent invention noted that informality and combined contextual and cultural knowledge could be used to overcome many of these concerns for SMS text messages. The present invention goes further, and addresses the potential of pattern-recognition and interpolation techniques and of associating the main text message with any provided secondary or contextual cues.